


Unmasked

by assrelays



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 18:02:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5880466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/assrelays/pseuds/assrelays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>au where Cerberus pulls a Winter Soldier and Kai Leng is actually Kaidan that Shepard left on Virmire.</p><p>Now on AO3!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unmasked

“EDI, secure the room.”

 

The AI nodded, and Shepard holstered her gun. Kai Leng lay unmoving on the ground. She didn't waste the round to let him die quick—he could bleed out for what he'd done, to her, to her crew. Instead she made busy with the console, trying to recover the Prothean data. The firefight outside sounded worlds away. The only noise in the room were her squad's soft steps and the wet, ragged breathing of Kai Leng.

 

Say what you would about the Illusive Man, but he kept a tidy console. The files were neatly placed—no encryption—and blatantly labeled. She made her way through the myriad of data, downloading bits that might be relevant to her omnitool. The Prothean information was the main objective, but if they had gone all the way to the Cerberus base and the Illusive Man had left it wide open, she might as well salvage as much as possible.

 

Engrossed as she was in the data, Shepard didn't hear Kai Leng stand, or limp towards her. She didn't see him from the corner of her eye when he stood behind her. But she felt the breath of air as he raised the sword...

 

...and, on instinct, swung her arm around, shattering the blade and catching him by the throat. He choked, dropping the sword and struggling to remain standing. She held him at eye level.

 

“You killed my friend.” She felt her grip on his throat tighten reflexively. “I'm going to stare into your eyes when I kill you with your own blade.” Her biotics flared, and he flew across the room, slamming into the far wall and sliding limply to the floor. She picked up the blade, wiping the blood off idly on the leg of her armor. Kai Leng coughed, and scarlet spotted his lips. She pressed the shattered remnants of the blade to his throat, hard enough to draw a thin line of blood. His lips were set in a snarl, but he didn't have the breath to speak.

 

Slowly, she pulled the mask up over his head.

 

She had been chasing Kai Leng since the Citadel, picking up the bodies he left behind. He'd made it personal when he killed Thane, left Liara's home world a smoldering mess, and finally leveled the killing blow against Miranda. There was nothing about his work that was just business. He was out for her, for her crew, for everyone she cared about. She would relish the sound of his last breath, the look as the light faded from his eyes--

 

The blade rang as it clattered to the floor.

 

 _No_.

 

“Kaidan,” she breathed.

 

No, no, _no_. He was dead. He was dead, turned to ash, nothing more than pile of forgotten dust on a planet billions of lightyears away.

 

 _Kaidan_. His hair was grown out, and she didn't remember his eyes being that color, but he was unmistakable—the same man who had been haunting the edges of her dreams for years. Memories flooded over her. The original Normandy. His spot on the crew deck. Visiting. Checking up. Talking. Laughing. Catching him smiling at her when he thought she wasn't looking. A brush of the hand. A fleeting glance that lasted a second too long, and an eternity too short.

 

And then Virmire.

 

It was him or Williams. He was the higher ranking officer, but he was also a dalliance. She knew it then. She knew it now. He was a distraction, a subordinate that she cared too much for. Could she condemn Ashley to die because of, what, some fleeting affection? Because of a smile? Because of a man who loved her more than she could ever admit to loving him?

 

He was gone. He was buried. He was dead.

 

Yet he was staring her in the face.

 

No, staring wasn't the right word. Glaring. He was glaring, unyielding, inhospitable. His eyes raked over her and she could feel it, even if his lips couldn't move to form the words. She was hated—worse than hated.

 

She was dead to him.

 

She tried to speak, to form a question, but only soft sounds came out. Her eyes, they were burning. Something in her throat clenched. She tried to blink, but it only made her vision blurry. No, dammit. She was Commander Shepard; she didn't cry, least of all over—over--

 

“Kaidan,” she said, and this time her voice came out thick. “Kaidan—I—I--”

 

He swung the sword, but he was slow. Her biotics pulsed, sending the blade skittering across the room and slamming his head into the wall. He slumped, unconscious or dead. She didn't know which would be a greater relief.

 

EDI and Tali hovered behind her, apparently having found their way over at some point. The AI didn't know him, not in any real sense. There were the reports, always the reports, but to see him in the flesh... Tali's expression was unreadable through her mask, but something about her body language... she understood.

 

“Tali, can you finish up here?” The quarian nodded, unable to tear her gaze away. Shepard scooped up the mask, turning it over in her hands, before deciding to tuck it into her belt. Cerberus. If they could bring one person back, why not two? And with as much damage as his body and mind suffered... They could have molded him, made him whatever the Illusive Man wanted.

 

He could have been lying on the operation table beside her.

 

She glanced at the AI. “Tell Joker to ready the holding cells.”

 

 

 

 

 

Time passed, and there was only the steady hum of the ship, and the faint, static buzz of the biotic barrier. The walls of the holding cell pulsed violet in time to the jittery bounce of her leg, a staccato _flash flash flash_. Nothing moved. No one spoke. It was just Shepard and Kaidan, staring each other down.

 

Tali had asked if she wanted her to go with her. Ash had all but insisted. She turned them both down with a flatly. And they couldn't argue. They'd all been there on the original Normandy. They had seen the two of them, together, talking, smiling. Kaidan had been their crewmate, but her...

 

Her failure.

 

When she'd hauled him aboard, bound and unconscious, there had been a different sort of silence. Not the deliberate kind, the pressure that built until one of them snapped, but a hesitant kind. Joker had stopped mid-sentence, suddenly at an uncharacteristic loss for words. The rest had followed suit, even the new crew, who hadn't known him before—before Cerberus. No one knew how to break the tenuous silence, and so no one had. Not until she stepped into the elevator and slammed the button to take her to the brig. The doors slid shut, and it was like the burst of a bubble.

 

“Commander,” Tali started.

 

“Ashley, Liara, and Garrus will want to know. Tell them the basics, and that I'll meet them in my cabin for discussion after I've... dealt with the situation.” Shepard glanced at the quarian, and added, more gently, “You too.”

 

She gave a hesitant nod, face obscured but wringing hands a dead giveaway—anxious. There was a twisting in Shepard's gut, but she suppressed the feeling. A small ding announced their arrival on the crew deck, but she held the doors closed for a moment more.

 

“Keep this quiet if you can, Tali. There's going to be a lot of trouble, especially with the Alliance and all the Cerberus tech he's got on him. I want to stay out of the fire for as long as possible, at least until we can figure this out.”

 

“Of course, Shepard,” she said after a moment. There was a hesitant question on her tone, one that she could not quite voice. “If you need help, I--”

 

“I'll handle it, Tali,” she said with finality, and released the elevator lock.

 

The doors to the crew deck slid open before Tali could even punch the button. Ash had her arm crossed, the look on her face defiant. Hell, how fast did gossip spread on this ship? So much for keeping things under wraps. Shepard didn't even have the chance to groan before Ash barked out a, “Commander!”

 

“Williams,” she replied evenly. Tali hovered uncertainly beside her, until Shepard gave a sharp jerk of her head and the quarian quickly scooted around Ashley, making for the Garrus and Liara. She made to press the button for the next deck, but Ashley slammed her hand across the elevator doors, blocking them.

 

“Commander,” she repeated, a definite edge in her voice. But for all her steel, she kept her eyes firmly fixed on her CO, not able to so much as glance at the bound and unconscious captive beside her.

 

“Williams,” Shepard repeated, her voice pseudo-saccharine, and jammed the close doors button.

 

Ashley didn't flinch. “When were you going to tell me?”

 

Shepard began to feel a slight throbbing above her left eye.“Later, preferably after I got our guest locked away behind a barrier.” She didn't bother to mask the irritation in her voice. “He's a biotic, in case you forgot, somewhere between his raid on the Citadel and when we left him to roast on Virmire.”

 

The lieutenant-commander flinched. It was a low blow, and Shepard knew it. Even if she had been the one to make the call, Ash had never really stopped blaming herself. There was no way she knew about Shepard's rationale, about tying up loose ends, which left her only with the puzzle of why a higher ranking officer had been sacrificed to let her live. Her eyes flicked down to the limp form for the briefest of moments, and her expression was pained.

 

Then she was business once more. “He's Cerberus,” she said. “We need to interrogate him.”

 

“Another issue more easily resolved once he is in a cell. I'll even see to it personally, since you're so concerned.” Her tone was non-negotiable, but Ashley didn't bend like Tali. She hadn't made it to Spectre status by crumbling in the wake of gale force winds.

 

“Let me do it,” she said. “I deserve to be there when--”

 

Shepard's temper flared. “What you deserve, Lieutenant-Commander, is not my goddamned problem. What you _need_ is to remember whose ship you are aboard, whose orders you are taking, and whose decisions matter more than any feeling you can cook up with that guilt-ridden hero complex of yours. Do I make myself clear?”

 

Ashley hesitated, and it was all the opening she needed. Shepard mashed the elevator button, and the other woman stepped back meekly, letting the doors close in front of her just before she could murmur a weak, “Ma'am.”

 

The elevator shifted into motion, and Shepard let out a slow breath, leaning against the back wall of the box. She'd pay for that later. After Ashley had time to shake off the shock, she'd be back in full force. Shepard had delayed her at best.

 

She hadn't meant to snap, not really. Ashley was her friend. But she'd done a lot worse things to friends before, and she couldn't let something so callous as pulling rank weigh her down. Ashley would get past it, eventually, which was more than she could say for some of her friends. Certain things you don't move past. A bullet in the head was one. Being left to die via nuclear explosion was another.

 

The elevator doors slid open, and there was no more time for contemplation.

 

 

 

Shepard sat on a crate across from the holding cell for the better part of an hour before Kaidan came to. Even then, she could not truly say he stirred—rather his eyes opened, and immediately found hers. They resonated with the same rheumy hatred, the complete and incomprehensible cold rage of a man spurned and burned and left to die.

 

If she hadn't known Kaidan, she wouldn't have blamed him. But she did, and this was nothing like him. This was Cerberus.

 

What they could have salvaged after a nuclear explosion would have been next to nothing. They had rebuilt him from a stripped carcass, which left room for modifications. She fought not to shiver as the Illusive Man's words on Mars rang through her head. _They're being improved_.

 

The man in front of her might have looked like Kaidan, sounded like Kaidan, even had the memories of Kaidan, but that didn't make him the same. He'd been patched together by mad scientists, reconstructed in a new image, one of raw pain and hatred. She had watched as he killed in cold blood, reveled in the destruction of a whole planet. He was not the same man who couldn't stand the sight of injured civilians.

 

And yet...

 

Her stomach gnawed with guilt. He looked the same, even if the details had been smudged. His eyes were the wrong color, but her own had long been corroded red by the cybernetics. He had killed her friend, killed Thane, but what his body count compared to hers? Samara. Mordin. Legion. Wrex. What was murder compared to betrayal? They had both been shattered, and reforged by the same hands. They were both monsters.

 

She broke first. “Kaidan.” It sounded wrong on her tongue. Had she even spoken his name since Virmire?

 

“Commander Surma Shepard, Alliance military,” he drawled. Despite being locked in a cell, a lazy smile played across his features. “What happened to killing me with my own sword?”

 

She shrugged. “Plans change.” She leaned back, trying her best for unconcerned. If his previous actions were any indication, he would try to get a rise out of her. He wanted to twist the knife. She wouldn't let him have the power over her, not on her own damn ship.

 

“I'm much more interested in what you can tell me, Kaidan.” He tensed at the name, the slightest shift in demeanor that she would have missed if she weren't looking for it. Good. She could use that. “For example, what you know about Cerberus. You've been in their service for awhile now, Kaidan--” there it was again, “--and I can only assume you've picked up on a thing or two. Like where the Illusive Man may be right now.”

 

His eyes darted over her, calculating, the same twisted smile in place. “And why would I tell you anything?”

 

She exhaled slowly. His expression was brittle, his shoulders still tensed. No matter how hard he tried for nonchalance, she could see him roiling underneath the surface. Even after a nuclear explosion, he had the same tells.

 

She met his stare evenly.“Because I know you, Kaidan.”

 

That struck just the right nerve. He exploded, hurling himself against the biotic barrier. Shepard flinched despite herself. His features seethed with rage, all his cool fury suddenly lit alight in a burning intensity. “That is not my name!” he snarled. “I am not the same fool you left to die on Virmire, Shepard!”

 

Shepard carefully checked her emotions. His...savagery, the raw, feral anger had startled her. Kaidan had never been like that, never been an animal. Callousness and brutality, those were always her tools, never his. He was kind words, an iron sense of morality, of duty. This... this was wrong.

 

 _Easy, Shepard_. Emotions made people careless. If she played her hand right, it would for her.

 

“If I'm the same Shepard, then you're the same Kaidan.” Her fists clenched and unclenched at her side, grounding her to a steady rhythm. “I know you, Kaidan.”

 

He slammed his fist against the barrier, and for a moment it flared a brilliant shade of violet. “You killed him! You killed him!” A cruelty twisted in his features. She knew what was coming. “You killed him the same way you killed the salarian and the krogan, the justicar and the geth too. Your entire force on Torfan, decimated.” He leered at her through the transparency of the barrier. “That's all you do, Shepard. Kill your friends. And you're just waiting to kill me too.”

 

She struggled for a moment to keep her thoughts together. It wasn't anything she hadn't thought to herself, but to hear it from his mouth sent a shiver down her spine. It drew up some image of a dozen half-remembered dreams where her failures circled her like vultures.

 

So she told him the same thing she told herself. “It was necessary. And I'd do it again.” Kaidan faltered for a moment, and took a hesitant half-step back. She pressed her advantage, rising and approaching the barrier. “I'd shoot them all again. I'd leave you to die without a second thought. If I even suspected it would help me win this war, I'd put two between your eyes without hesitating.”

 

She was standing directly in front of the barrier. Kaidan had taken several steps back, and was studying her again. He knew she meant it, every word, because he knew her, the same way she knew him. He had made a stab at her sense of guilt, presumably what he thought had stayed her hand. In some ways, he was right. But it came down to more than her and more than him. It came down to trillions of people on thousands of planets. It came down to survival.

 

She turned to leave. “EDI, I want this room locked down. No one visits without clearance authorized by me. If Ash has a problem with that, she knows where I'll be.” There was a soft thud, the sound of Kaidan settling back to the floor. She tossed a glance over her shoulder.

 

“You forgot one, Kaidan.”

 

He didn't bother to look up. “And which is that?”

 

“I got myself killed, too.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading again! This fic has been a great exploration of Surma's character for me.


End file.
